Nothing To Lose

• Start with a new file or should is say canvas of the required size
• Bucket Fill with Red color (or any other color that you like)
  (see IMAGE 1)
• Select the whole image, then apply RGB Noise filter.
  Filters — Noise — RGB Noise
• Play around with different values of Red Green and Blue (Make sure that the basic color which you select remains prominent and you have some black or dark areas.)
  (see IMAGE 2)
• Next apply Emboss effect (select the bump map option from the emboss dialogue box).
  Filters — Distorts — Emboss
• Keep the Depth slider at the middle, move around depth and azimuth to get different flow of the coarse effect.
  (see IMAGE 1)
• I felt that the brightness was less so I increased the contrast and brightness a bit more in the end.
• And that makes your coarse surface ready!

Unfortunately these do not have a very nice hold, i.e. the stub itself is really weak, and over a period of time due the heat and aging of the plastic it becomes weak.

The most irritating stuff that happens is when you have to open these things for minor repairs and you find that the whole of the circuit board is dangling out.
Those dammed stubs are broken.
(See IMAGE 2).

Sticking them is of no use, usually as soon as you try to replace the screw, the sticking material is not able to take the torque and they break loose again.

So big question is what to do?

Well if the stubs are small and you casing permits you to drill some holes through, i.e there is nothing apart from the stubs you can go for the following which I did to my UPS recently to get the circuit board back on place.

• Check out how many stubs are broken.
• Get required screw nuts pair and also spacers (IMAGE 3).
  (a spacer is a plastic cylindrical piece similar to the stub but allows to pass the screw through easily.) Also make sure your stubs are of similar height of the stub. (if you can find stubs in the market or are not easily available, take some old sketch pen or similar pen, cut in required small pieces this can also server the purpose).
• Drill holes at center where the stub was.(IMAGE 4)
  
  (make sure the holes are of the size that lets the screw pass through easily but stops its head from passing, but if you have already done something like that or the stub is broken in a big hole then use some washers).
• Put the screws from outside (IMAGE 5) of the casing and place the spacers onto it from inside. (IMAGE 6)
• Finally Put back the circuit board (or whatever has to be placed there) pass the screws through the original holes and place the nuts onto the screws.
  
  (IMAGE 7)
• Tighten carefully, not to tight ( that it breaks the board itself ) or not too loose (that they may drop out any time).
• And your stuff is back in action and repaired.
  
  ( IMAGE 8 )

Well hope that was useful.. try it out some time.. as it is  “there is nothing to lose”  ;)  only tightening some loose ends.

• In GIMP start with a new file of canvas size: 420×300 (feel free to do it with other sizes)
• Select the blend fill tool; Select Coffee gradient.
• With ‘ctrl’ pressed, use the gradient tool to select from right edge to left edge of canvas, you should get something similar to image 1.
• Repeat the above process for right to left, top to bottom and bottom to top. you should have the board ready something similar to image 2
• Apply Rounded Corner filter to the image: Filter — Decor — Rounded Corner. (un-select the add shadow from the dialogue box). Try a higher radius edge — i have used a radius edge of 25. you should now get a something similar to image 3
• Your basic board is ready. Now to make screw heads start with a new image of say 100×100. (though we will be only using a very small area of that )
• From the tools select the Ellipse Select Tool, holding shift down select a area of 20×20
• Select the blend fill tool; Select Cold Steel gradient.
• Now roughly around 2 or 3 pixels from the select circle, pull a small gradient select. This will give you your screw head. something similar to image 4
• select this screw head and copy it on four corners of the coffee-board.
• every time you place the screw on a corner, use the rotate tool (shift-R) to rotate every screw in a bit of different direction, this make it look more real
• finally using the dodge/burn tool smudge the area around the screw to give it a look of pressure around the screw. (you will have to select the background layer to do that)
• So your board is ready… put it on your website and write you name there
• I have put it as a table cell background and put text in the center of the cell.